Peace Process Fraught with Peril for Arroyo

Arroyo’s advisers also initially said that the government was conducting a review of the agreement, possibly even a renegotiation.

But on Saturday, Arroyo’s press secretary, Jesus Dureza, declared that the government would no longer sign the agreement in its current form. Instead, it will launch “widespread consultations” on the agreement with communities and non-Muslim sectors in Mindanao – the very thing that opponents of the deal said the government should have done in the first place.

Adding pressure on the government to go back to the negotiating table is the interest shown by the international community in resolving the conflict, which has been going on for decades in the south. Malaysia, for example, has been mediating the peace negotiations in the past five years – the signing three weeks ago was to have taken place there – and its efforts have largely been credited for the progress in the talks.

Malaysian investments in Mindanao, including in Muslim areas, have been increasing the past several years.

Washington, on the other hand, is keen to end the conflict in the south as part of its war on terrorism. It has promised multimillion-dollar aid to Mindanao, particularly in Muslim areas, on the condition that a final peace agreement is signed. An undetermined number of American soldiers have been stationed in Mindanao since 2002, while U.S. corporations, like Exxon, are eyeing investments in Muslim provinces.

Clearly, said Julkipli Wadi, a professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of the Philippines, “it is not in the interest of the government to abandon the peace process.”

Arroyo, he said, should now work to repair the damage she created by failing to involve others – like Congress, local governments, nongovernment groups, the various communities in Mindanao – in the peace process.

Not forging a peace settlement, warned Lingga of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, would be very costly. “As the conflict will be prolonged,” he said, “secession might become an option to some.”

On Saturday, the front’s chairman, Ebrahim Murad, said at his camp that “war is among the options.”

“If the Supreme Court rules against the agreement,” said Zachary Abuza, an American expert on Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia and a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, “brace yourself for a lot more fighting.”